


Here, Now

by EveryoneHasAmnesia



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy is a jerk, First Kiss, Harringrove, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, tw: abuse mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 17:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18579175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveryoneHasAmnesia/pseuds/EveryoneHasAmnesia
Summary: Why would anyone leave California to move to Hawkins, Indiana? Billy has a lot of answers. One of them just might be true.





	Here, Now

Billy doesn’t even make it through a full day of school before someone sticks their nose in his business. He’s sitting on the outdoor bleachers during lunch when he gets asked The Question for the first time. He looks up from his turkey sandwich and a group has formed around him. They’re all country mice idiots who’ve probably never seen a celebrity in person. Billy’s clearly the closest thing they’ve ever seen.

“So why’d you leave California?” 

Billy lights his cigarette and takes a deep drag. It’s better to leave everyone hanging. “I got expelled for fighting,” he says, off the cuff, like he doesn’t give a fuck. 

There’s a murmur from the crowd. One boy laughs loud instead. Billy’s head snaps around. He fixes the guy with a grin and sees him falter like a spooked horse. “Want to see how it happened?” Billy asks, his voice soft and pleasant. He stands up. He’s one row higher on the bleachers. He towers over the other boy. 

“Alright man, alright,” the dark-haired kid says, holding his hands up. He’s on the edge, playing it cool but sweating just a little. His eyes dart side to side, but he’s laughing when he says, “Don’t hurt me, killer.” 

Billy grins, and the tension breaks, and just like that Billy’s cautiously accepted. If you’re smart--and Billy’s smart, fuck Neil--you can see the group mentality taking over. Win over Tommy H, and suddenly things are falling into place. 

Billy ashes onto the bleachers, a mini cyclone of cigarette grit appearing for just a second. “Stay on my good side.” 

\---

“Did you really meet Kevin Costner?” 

Her name is Jenny, or Janene, or something like that. Her black shirt’s neckline is cut too deep and a size too small; when she breathes, or leans to pick up her cup from the table, or shimmies to the music Billy can see her breasts bounce. Her bra is white, showing through the dark fabric like a spotlight. Billy doesn’t bother to meet her eyes as he answers her, addressing his comments to her tits. 

“Oh, yeah,” he says. He washes his words down with a swig of “pure fuel”. “Everyone wants to come to L.A. It was no big deal.” 

He isn’t from L.A. He’s never even been there. California is a huge state, spanning croplands and deserts, beaches and movie stars, San Francisco and Death Valley, redwood forests and the origins of Jonestown, hippies and conservatives and great expanses of nothing. But say “California” in Indiana, and all anyone can see is movie stars. 

“That’s so cool,” Maybe-Jenny says. Sbe puts her hand on his arm and he knows that he can take her out to the car and fuck her, that all it takes to have her is to be someone who’s seen Kevin Costner. “Why would you ever leave California?” 

“My dad won the lottery,” he says. “So he wanted to go somewhere no one knew him, so moochers with their hands out wouldn’t bleed him dry.” 

“Are you saying you’re rich?” She laughs, and that stings his pride. Billy straightens up and drags his eyes away from her boobs. Bitch. He isn’t dirt poor or anything. He has a fucking car, a fucking good pair of jeans, and at least he isn’t getting too fat for his shirt like this cow. He might have a reputation to keep up, but he’s not going to do it with her. No matter how easy she’d be. 

“No, I’m not,” he says. “I’m not a damn moocher, don’t you listen? Move, I gotta take a leak.” 

\---

Billy goes to a lot of parties. They’re his element. He can crush a house party, a keg-stand record, whatever. He’s popped some cherries. He knows how to get drunk and not too drunk, high but not confess anything too real. If he fucks it up, though, it doesn’t really matter. In someone’s stupid tornado-inspired fallout shelter basement, he can scream and punch a wall and blame whatever poison he picked today. 

You can’t only socialize at parties, though. Eventually people want to sober up and stagger out of their hot boxes and see the world. Even when the world’s just shitty Indiana. 

Billy sucks at not-parties. When he tries to do anything else, it falls flat. He flops through small groups and one on ones like a fish out of water, dying for a drink so bad he should have gills. But Tommy asks him, and there’s Carol, and everyone else in this tiny town. So he puts on a leather jacket in the hot night air and goes to see what he can see. Try not to be a total burnout, Hargrove. 

He’s at a county fair. It smells like fried sugar and animal dung. Billy zones out, taking in the lights, the colors. There’s a kid crying in a green and white 4-H uniform, standing by a pen with a pig in it. Billy watches for a moment, and just when he thinks he’s gonna have to step in and say something to this fucking kid, a tall man Billy assumes is the kid’s dad comes into view. 

“C’mon, stop it,” the dad says. “You won, didn’t you?” 

The kid is probably nine or ten, and he scrubs his eyes with the back of his hand. “But. But.”

“Now, son. You knew what that pig was for from the moment you got it.”

“But I love him!” The kid is all but hiccuping trying to keep back the tears. The pig, unaware that it is the subject of turmoil, noses at the fence for treats. 

“You love bacon. You love sausage. This is how you get it.” The man reaches out to the boy, and Billy flinches back. It’s an involuntary action, a mandate from the base of his skull, and for a second he actually watches the kid reel back, hears the smack, sees the blood from his nose--and then it’s gone, and Billy’s cold and shaking, and the father has put his hand gently on his son’s shoulder. There was never any blood. They embrace, and Billy turns away. 

“First rodeo?” Tommy H asks, and Billy shakes his head. 

“No. I mean, we had fairs in California. This isn’t my first time riding the Tilt-a-Whirl or eating cotton candy.” 

“Of course they had fairs in California. They have eeeeeverything in California,” Carol says, and grins. “Billy never shuts the fuck up about California.” 

“You never shut up,” Billy says, and it’s a weak comeback. The sounds of the fair seem to be ramping up; he can hear shrieking from the Zipper in the distance. The air is sticky with humidity and he suddenly hates it here, hates everything. He kicks a paper cup. An arc of lemonade splashes out and soaks into the hard packed dirt in seconds. 

“If you love California so much, why’d you come to Indiana?” Sarah asks. She’s from the next town over, and she’s small town pretty; one of thousands in a city, but in a limited pool… She stands out. 

There are groans from people who’ve heard the story--or some story, at least--before, but Billy answers. “My mother died,” Billy says, flat and hard. “And my father married my step-mom the next month, and then here we are.” It’s worth it to see the shock on her pretty face, even though it’s not quite the full truth. “Mind your own business next time.” 

She’s so sorry she brought it up that she kisses him in the parking lot after the fair, and Billy leans back against the car. He wraps his arms around her waist, and revels in how much she wants him. It’s enough. He can always think of someone else during. 

He parked under a street light, and he’s sure that Tommy and Carol see him and his one-night girlfriend as they drive away. Reputation maintained for one more night. 

\---

The sky in the east is light grey, slowly brightening to blue. Billy’s smoking on the deck of someone’s hunting cabin. They’re miles from town, and he can hear the birds start to sing one by one. The air is still, and after the chaos of last night everything feels glassy and distant. 

Billy’s on the tail end of drunk, sobering up slowly, without sleeping. Everyone else creeped off by ones and twos to pass out. Or fuck and then pass out. He made coffee in an old coffee marker, and the grounds got in the bowl and made it taste gritty. That’s what he focuses on, trying to make the morning feel real. He hasn’t slept in coming on 24 hours. 

The sliding glass door onto the balcony opens, and Steve Harrington steps out. Billy’s peace is shattered. He turns back to the sunrise. “Haven’t seen you out in a while. Don’t you have to go bring kids to strange houses?” 

Steve looks bad. There are bags under his eyes, and a casual look suggests he’s lost a little weight. His ass doesn’t fill his jeans the way it used to when he leans over against the balcony railing. “That’s old news, man,” Steve says. “Hey, give me a cigarette.” 

“They’re bad for you,” Billy says. 

“I’m too hungover to drive home, and I have to open my parents’ ice cream shop in,” Steve consults his watch. “Four hours. It is too late for me to make good choices today.” 

Billy laughs. It’s just the unexpectedness of it, the surprise; for someone who used to be a cool guy, Steve had been a square as long as Billy had known him. He gives him the cigarette. “But seriously. Why this? A hunting lodge party sounded cooler than it actually was.” 

“I’m getting back in the saddle.” Steve lights the cigarette, takes one puff, and lets it burn down between his fingers. 

“I’m never getting out of the saddle. That’s how I avoid that.” 

Steve huffs a laugh, and takes another tiny puff. He’s wasting a goddamn cigarette. “Okay. Last night you told everyone you left California to be in the Witness Protection Program. So. Not sure you really had the bull by the horns at that point. How are you not passed the fuck out?” 

“It’s the saddle.” A jay lands on an empty bird feeder not ten feet from them. They both still, watching it peck, peck, fix them with a single black eye, and then take off into the trees. They both sigh when it’s gone, like they’d been holding their breath. “I’m… not in the Witness Protection Program.” 

“Really? I’m shocked,” Steve says. “But okay. I’ll take the bait. Why did you actually move away from Cali, Bill?” 

“A lot of things. Dad was iffy on staying. It’s expensive. But mostly, he caught me doing something, and he decided that there was no way we could stay.” 

“You can’t do that. You can’t say that and not tell me what it was. Don’t be a coward.” 

“No one is ever going to believe you,” Billy warns him. “I’ve got ten stories out there. Maybe more. But if you really want to know just to know, I’ll tell you.” 

Steve stubs his barely touched cigarette out on the railing. “You have my full attention.” 

Billy slides one hand up and into Steve’s hair. It’s messy and tangled from a night of partying. His other arm wraps around Steve’s waist and pulls him close. Billy gets one look at Steve’s wide eyes and shocked expression and then he closes his eyes. Lips find lips in a frisson like static shock. 

Steve goes from stiff with shock to suddenly pliant in his arms. Billy deepens the kiss. It everything kissing the Hawkins cows hasn’t been. He can feel the kiss in his lips, his skin, deep in the pit of his stomach where a shiver of pleasure is running down his pelvis to his dick. It’s fireworks. It’s a clap of thunder. He’s only kissed girls for so long he forgot what kissing could be like. Steve tastes like smoke and cinnamon, and feels sturdier than he looks. Billy leans on him when he slips his tongue in, and Steve doesn’t falter. He’s got his arms around Billy’s neck, and when the kiss is finally over Billy has to push himself out of Steve’s grasp. 

Billy steps away and cards his fingers through his own hair, grinning at Steve. His tongue slides out, lapping the last of the other boy off his lips. Steve is staring at him, mouth open, like a dying fish. He doesn’t look angry. He looks maybe a little turned on, blushing red across his cheeks, but he’s not making a move either way. The silence stretches until Billy can’t stand it anymore. 

“First kiss, pretty boy?” he asks, knowing it’s not. He sees the openness in Steve’s eyes close up, snapping shut like a turtle retreating to its shell, and as sad as it is, it feels powerful too. Billy likes being in charge. “Remember,” he says, and reaches out, gently pushing Steve out of his way as he strides back to that sliding door. “No one is going to believe you.” 

He leaves Steve on the balcony.


End file.
